IZZ AD-DIN AL-QASSAM

Sheikh 'Izz ad-Din al-Qassam' (1882– November 20, 1935) (, ) was an influential Islamist preacher in the British Mandate of Palestine. He founded and led the Black Hand, a Palestinian militant group, from 1930 until his death in 1935.

Contents

Early life

Involvement in the 1921 Syrian revolt

The Black Hand group

Influence

References

Further reading

Early life

Al-Qassam was born in Jebla, in the northern Syrian Latakia Governorate, son of a teacher and adherent of Sufism. He was educated at al-Azhar University and was associated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Upon his return he became a teacher and an imam at the local mosque, where he called for the villagers to return to God.
After Italy's 1911 invasion of Libya, al-Qassam declared a Jihad and collected funds for Libyan resistance, as well as composing a victory anthem. He enlisted dozens of volunteers and set out for Libya, but was detained and ordered home by the Ottoman authorities. He enlisted in the Ottoman army when World War I broke out where he received military training and was attached as a chaplain to a base near Damascus. Returning home before the war's end, al-Qassam organised a local defence force to fight the French, but French-incited internecine infighting led him and several of his followers to head into the mountains to prepare for a guerilla offensive. One Palestine, Complete, , Tom, Segev, Metropolitan Books, 1999,

Involvement in the 1921 Syrian revolt

Al-Qassam was a key figure in the 1921 Syrian revolt against the French when Faisal I declared his kingdom of Greater Syria in Damascus and was sentenced to death after its failure. After the French besieged the city, he fled via Beirut to Haifa, then under the British Mandate, where his wife and daughters later joined him. Already in his forties, he concentrated his activities on the lower classes, setting up a night school for casual labourers and preaching to them as imam in the Istiqlal mosque, and he would seek them out on the streets and even in brothels and hashish dens. He was also a prominent member of the Young Men's Muslim Association. Associated with the Istiqlal party (Independence Party), his activities were financed by several well-off businessman due to his spreading reputation.
In 1929 he was appointed the marriage registrar in Mufti Amin al-Husayni's Supreme Muslim Council Sharia court in Haifa, a role that allowed him to tour the northern villages, whose inhabitants he encouraged to set up agricultural cooperatives. He also took advantage of his travels to deliver fiery political and religious sermons in which he encouraged villagers to organise terrorist cells to attack the British and Jews. After the 1929 Hebron massacre, he intensified his agitation and obtained a fatwa from Shaykh Badr al-Din al-Taji al-Hasani, the Mufti of Damascus, authorizing those attacks.

The Black Hand group

Main articles: Black Hand (Palestine)

In 1930 al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand, an anti-zionist and anti-British militant organisation, classified by them as a terrorist group. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. The cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to kill Jews in the area, as well as engaging in a campaign of vandalism of the Jewish-planted trees and British constructed rail-lines.
According to Shai Lachman, between 1921 and 1935 al-Qassam often cooperated with Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Mohammad Amin al-Husayni:

During the (nineteen) twenties, both were on good terms, their understanding probably based on identity of views and mutual esteem. It was then that al-Qassam was appointed imam of the al-Istiqlal mosque and sharia register - appointments which required the Mufti's prior consent and approval and were financed by the awqaf administration. The cooperation may well have increased as a result of the 1929 riots. One source claims that al-Qassam's men took an active part in the bloody riots... Later towards the mid-1930s, there was a falling out between the two men. The reason for this is unknown, but it seems to have been closely related to al-Qassam's independent activity... As long as the terrorist activity was directed only at Jewish targets, the Mufti saw nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, it fell in line with his own anti-Jewish policy; he secretly encouraged it and apparently extended financial aid to al-Qassam and his organization.^[1]

When the Mufti rejected his plans to divert funding for mosque repairs towards the purchase of weaponry, Qassam found support in the Arab Nationalist |Istiqlal Party. Qassam continued to attempt an alliance with the Mufti in order to attack the British but failed as the Mufti who headed the Supreme Muslim Council was still committed to a diplomatic approach at the time. Qassam went ahead with his plans to attack the British on his own.
In November of 1935, al-Qassam and several of his men departed Haifa for the hills near Jenin, spending ten days moving around, and fed by local villagers. When two of his men engaged in a firefight with a Palestine police patrol hunting out fruit thieves in which a Jewish policeman was killed, British police launched a manhunt and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad; al-Qassam was killed in the ensuing gun-battle.

Influence

Although al-Qassam's revolt had no success, radical organizations gained inspiration from his revolutionary project. His funeral drew thousands, which turned into a mass demonstration of national unity. He became a popular hero and inspiration to fighters, and his grave became a place of pilgrimage.
The military wing of Hamas, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, bears his name. The Qassam rocket is named after the brigades who use them.
Al-Qassam is buried at the Muslim cemetery at Balad-a-Sheikh, now Nesher, a suburb of Haifa. His grave was damaged several times by Israeli extreme right activists.

References

1. Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39: The Case of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam and His Movement, , Shai, Lachman, in "Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel", edited by Elie Kedourie and Sylvia G. Haim, Frank Cass. London, 1982,

Further reading

★ Ted Swedenburg, "The Role of the Palestinian Peasantry in the Great Revolt (1936-1939)," reprinted in Hourani, Albert H., et al., ''The Modern Middle East'' (I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp. 467-503. ISBN 1-86064-963-7